Early Decision: How voting before Election Day is changing campaigns.

By the end of the month, voters in 30 states will begin casting ballots at early-voting sites or by absentee. The increasingly popular practice is having an effect on the presidential campaign.

Storified by Digital First Media · Mon, Sep 24 2012 12:16:12

By the end of the month, voters in 30 states will begin casting ballots at early-voting sites or by absentee. The increasingly popular practice is having an effect on the presidential campaign.

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People are more likely to vote early this year.

Early voters have increased from 20 percent in 2004 to an estimated 30 percent in 2008. This year, it could go up to 35 percent, reports NBC News. “Once you turn up the faucet on early voting, you keep turning it up until it’s all the way open,” a George Mason University professor who studies early voting told NBC.

Campaigns are more efficient.

Candidates can focus their energy on people who haven’t yet voted, notes the Los Angeles Times. Campaigns can tell which voters have already turned in their absentee ballots. “You stop sending them mail. You stop calling them. You don’t need to knock on their door anymore,” a senior campaign aide told the newspaper.

Debates are less important.

Six of the nine swing states will already have started in-person early voting by the third presidential debates, writes Bloomberg News. “That means the candidates could deliver the best debate performances of their careers and it would be too late to sway the votes of a growing slice of the electorate,” the news service notes.

Last-minute attacks are less effective.

With so many ballots already cast, last-minute attacks and other “October surprises” are less likely to have a big effect, explains Bloomberg Businessweek. “We don’t really see October surprises any more in states with early voting,” one expert told the magazine. “You can’t wait. They have to get it out earlier than in previous elections.”

Minor issues may become more important.

On the other hand, maybe “October surprises” are now happening in September as well, postulates Politico. “Where once a gaffe may have been ignored or unnoticed, it now may be the last thing a voter remembers before casting his or her ballot,” the Capitol Hill newspaper writes.

But there’s still time for swing voters.

Many of the people taking advantage of early voting would have voted for the same candidate later anyway, notes National Journal. “The sorts of voters who are voting right now… are people who have already made up their minds,” the George Mason professor tells the daily paper. “They are hard-core partisans.”